'The ball is in Sharon's court now' Musa Keilani, Jordan Times

Opinion, July 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

'The ball is in Sharon's court now' Musa Keilani

Jordan Times, Sunday, July 27, 2003

PALESTINIAN PRIME Minister Mahmoud Abbas has clearly placed the ball in Israel's court, by making clear what the Palestinians are expected to do and what is required to revive the peace process: Israel has to halt all its activities to build and expand Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, release Palestinian prisoners, stop constructing the so-called security fence along the West Bank and call off targeted killing of Palestinians. In return, the Palestinian groups would stay committed to the truce they have declared, allowing the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to resume negotiations. Of course, there are ifs and buts in the stipulations, particularly given that Hamas and Islamic Jihad said the truce was only aimed at averting a Palestinian civil war and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade refused to suspend armed resistance.

However, if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets the conditions demanded by Abbas, the ground could be set for revived negotiations. At the same time, if Sharon insists on his stand against any freeze in settlement construction, wants to limit the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released to the 350 that he has offered, continues to build the “security fence” and target Palestinian activists for killings, then there is little hope to expect a new scenario conducive to peace in Palestine.

The first crack in the Quartet-backed “roadmap” for peace in the Middle East has appeared with the assertion by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that the goal of a Palestinian state by 2005 would be difficult, but could be achieved.

According to Powell, it is still possible to press ahead with the roadmap and then speed it up, once the two sides have built more confidence in each other. But, Sharon's hardline positions and arrogant insistence that the Palestinians do as he orders are the main hurdles.

What Sharon has offered is mostly cosmetic so far; it is an affront to anyone concerned with the peace process that Sharon wants to pass off as a sign of his commitment to peace the fact that he has ordered a crackdown on “illegal” settlement outposts in the West Bank, since few people live in such outposts that are nothing but a couple of condemned mobile homes placed on hillsides. Sharon wants the world to accept that the Israeli army had “withdrawn” from parts of the Gaza Strip, whereas the reality is that the soldiers have only been moved back and continue to keep the areas under siege.

To crown it all, Sharon's assassination squads are sneaking around in Gaza Strip and West Bank to use the first given opportunity to strike at Palestinian resistance leaders, most of the time resorting to cold-blooded murder if only to avoid increasing the number of prisoners in Israeli jails.

Against this backdrop, what could Abbas expect from Sharon? If there were any goodwill on Sharon's part, the 350 Palestinian prisoners he offered to free would have been free by now. That they are still being held proves that Sharon wants to use even those 350 as pawns in negotiations with Abbas.

What Sharon fails to understand or does not want to understand is that Abbas has no magic wand to rein in resistance groups' activities, and he needs all the help in the world to persuade leaders of militant groups to give peace a chance. It is mainly up to Sharon to create the right environment for Abbas to talk to his fellow Palestinian leaders and press them into seeing that there could be a light at the end of the tunnel if they cooperate, particularly given that US President George W. Bush, for political reasons of his own rather than any compassion for the Palestinian cause, has thrown his weight behind the efforts for peace in Palestine.

The window of opportunity posed by the renewed American commitment to create a Palestinian entity through the “roadmap” would not remain open beyond a few months, if not a few weeks now, given the shift of gear in Washington towards next year's presidential elections.

It was a high-profile welcome that Bush offered Abbas in Washington over the weekend, and one could not but wonder whether the American president's attitude towards the Palestinian prime minister was genuine or part of a scenario designed to show the world that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is a figure of the past. It appeared more like an orchestrated scenario, but let us believe that Bush seriously thinks he could do business with Abbas and work towards peace.

If that is indeed the real situation, then it is reasonable to expect Bush, or even demand of him, to lay bare the reality and force him to confront it. Sharon has to be forced into realising that he can no longer play the double game he has been playing, with the US on the one hand and with the Palestinians on the other.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).